


Backwoods Hospitality

by reapertownusa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2011-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:19:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapertownusa/pseuds/reapertownusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A case backfires and Sam has to save Dean from the locals they were trying to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Violence and suggestive scenarios.
> 
> Author's Note: An extended version of a story written for Dean-focused hurt/comfort comment-fic meme #3 prompt requesting that suspicious townspeople abuse Dean with Sam coming to the rescue.

This place was one more creepy ass house, with one more creepy ass basement. It was one too many. Dean pushed through the cobwebs and ignored the scurrying of cat sized rats as he shinned his flashlight towards Sam. The basement was cool, but sweat glistened over Sam’s brow. 

“I don’t know what to say, Sammy. I think we were wrong about this one.” 

Sam tossed the last pile of dirt back into the tenth pointless hole they’d dug. They were tearing apart this town looking for a body that just didn’t exist. After tamping the soil down, Sam stuck the spade into the ground and leaned on the shovel handle. His hand swiped across his forehead and Dean could tell by the stubborn look in his brother’s eyes that Sam wasn’t going to drop this one. 

“Something’s going on here,” Sam said. 

“Damn straight and it can be summed up in one word.” His brother raised a questioning brow. “Deliverance.” 

With a roll of his eyes Sam pushed past him towards the stairs. “I’m telling you, Dean. There’s just something about this place.” 

“Yeah, like the fact the sheriff is married to his granddaughter. I think I covered that with the whole Deliverance thing.” 

Looping the clip of his Walkman EMF detector over his belt, Dean hustled up the creaking steps of the dilapidated house. By the time they made it out to the car Dean couldn’t take anymore of the silent broody treatment. 

“Okay,” Dean said. “You want to check the churchyard again? We can split up and see if old man Bauer just doesn’t like a crowd.” 

After slamming the trunk closed, Sam nodded. “If we don’t find anything after that, we can hit the road.” 

“Anything to get out of this freaky excuse for a town. Unless you want to stick around for a night with Bauer’s widow. I saw the way that old bat was looking at you.” 

“Gross, Dean.” 

“I’m just saying, this town is obviously in need of a new breeder and they might just be desperate enough to take you.” 

His brother’s elbow jabbed into his side, making Dean chuckle all the harder. He slugged Sam before driving back down the dirt road they’d come in on. The sooner they were on the highway out of here, the better. Everyone in this town stared at them like they’d taste good with ketchup or like they wanted them tied up under their beds. 

The old church had been a bitch to find when they had first arrived in town. It was tucked back in the woods and the dirt road to it had long since overgrown. Somehow the locals didn’t seem to have any trouble getting to it because bodies kept turning up there, people all beaten to hell with their backs torn to shreds. 

From the original crime scene photos he and Sam had jumped to guessing it was a werewolf, but in person it was obvious that it hadn’t been an animal, werewolf or otherwise. The only thing they had been able to come up with was that injuries were a match for Johnson Bauer, a local murder victim that was buried in the churchyard the bodies were showing up in. 

Or at least the county records showed that he was buried there. It took digging well past six feet before they’d realized the headstone was nothing but that. Wherever Bauer’s body was it wasn’t at that gravesite or where any of the local leads had pointed. 

No new bodies had shown up since they’d arrived in town and all in all the case seemed to be a bust, but Sam was like a dog with a bone on this one. It wasn’t going to kill them to stay over one more night if it would make Sam happy. 

Dean parked the car at the last decent turnaround then grabbed a shotgun out of the back and checked the salt rounds. “I’ll take the old plot. Wouldn’t want you getting lost.” 

“Don’t you get lost,” Sam replied. “Meet back in an hour?” 

“You got it.” 

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Dean headed down the trail. This stupid little stakeout better be worth it to Sam. While Dean was decently sure there weren’t any spirits patrolling these grounds, there sure as hell was poison ivy, the biggest damn mosquitoes he’d ever seen and a decent chance that they’d be swallowed up by the kudzu while they sat around waiting for nothing to happen. 

A snap of a twig that he hadn’t stepped on caught his attention. “Giving up already, Sammy?” 

When his brother didn’t answer, Dean froze, quietly set down his bag and cocked his gun. He scanned the dense, pitch-black woods that surrounded him. The stars were out full force but it was a new moon. He couldn’t see anything that his flashlight beam didn’t directly hit. 

His stance swiveled when he heard another rustle of undergrowth coming from the other direction. This was no spook. Quietly he switched out the salt loaded shotgun for a lead loaded pistol. 

“Sam?” 

But he knew it wasn’t his brother. There were at least three of them. Whatever they were. The only one he didn’t hear was the one directly behind him before the woods got a hell of a lot blacker. 

~~~ 

Musky air mingled with the familiar scent of earth. Dean’s eyelids were still too heavy to pry open, but his mind was already gathering that he must have slipped on the steps. Sam had been running him up and down so many damn root cellars that they were bound to hit one with rotted stairs. 

He groaned as he shifted. The movement upgraded the ache in his skull from an annoying throbbing to full out marching band pounding. It brought him close enough to consciousness to realize he was face down in the dirt with a chill he couldn’t shake. 

“The stranger is awake,” a gravely voice announced. 

Dean startled at the unfamiliar voice. Running on instinct he moved to scramble up only to find his feet bare and his hands tightly bound in front of him. That wasn’t half as screwed up as the fact that he was buck-naked without a single hot chick in sight. 

“I was just kidding about the whole breeder thing...” Dean muttered beneath his breath. 

His wary eyes scanned the area. There was no surprise to find that it was another creepy ass basement. The only light came from the flickering glow of a kerosene lantern hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Mostly the room was bare aside from a carved wood table set to one side. 

Assembled around the table was one of the scariest sights Dean had seen in a long time. There were maybe a dozen older than dirt men dressed in black, sitting around the table with their hands folded. Some looked grim as hell while others just looked like he was keeping them up past their bedtime. 

Only one of them could even be bothered to send a dismissive glance his way, not that he wanted the perverts of the round table scoping him out. Dean locked eyes with the one that had stood from the table and was walking towards him. 

“What the hell is this?” 

The man’s eyes grew darker as he stopped a couple of feet from Dean. “Watch your tongue, boy.” 

Dean matched the man’s sneer with a dry smirk of his own. “Bite me you ugly ass son of a bitch.” 

Casually stepping forward the man snapped a forceful backhand across Dean’s face. The strike threw Dean off his unsteady stance and knocked him back to the ground. Once he got his bearings he glared up at the wrinkly old bastard. Why Sam was so stuck on saving this town was beyond him. 

“You will speak only to answer our questions.” 

Partially because his head was still spinning and partially because he didn’t want to give these guys a show, Dean stayed on the ground, pulling his knees up for cover. The man gave a satisfied nod, stepping back only slightly before speaking again. 

“What evil have you and your companion brought to our town?” 

“Us?” Dean’s tone was thick with disbelief. “We’re trying to help you ungrateful bastards.” 

These people were flat out crazy mothers. At least he was pretty sure if they had Sam his brother would be here next to him. That was unless Sam had seen them coming and fought. 

“If you’ve hurt my brother...” 

He didn’t have time to scoot back before the man moved in again to crack a fist against his face. While Dean tried to pull his arms up to deflect the blow, his wrists were bound tight enough to restrict their movement. Momentarily stunned he shook his head as the blood seeping from his nose trickled over his lip. 

There was no way he was going to sit here and get the crap beat out of him by a guy three times his age. He glanced once more around the room and positioned his feet flat on the floor. A moment later Dean threw himself forward and let the momentum carry him to his feet. He charged ahead, driving his shoulder into the old geezer. 

Before he could even turn around the door flew open and two other men rushed into the room. They were still old enough to be his father, but twice as young as the man Dean had just knocked to the ground. Not having any other options, Dean rushed the one closest to the exit. The larger man easily grabbed him while the second moved in to help. 

The older man indignantly pushed himself to his feet, brushed off the dirt and looked all the more pissed than he had before. “Take him outside,” he ordered. 

“You just going to let that old dude boss you around like that?” Dean huffed as he squirmed against the tight grips that clamped onto his bound arms. 

Considering that he was naked, he didn’t love how close one of the men leaned in to him. “You brought death to our home and have attacked our elders. Speaking further is only going to make it worse for you.” 

That might be true, but something told him that keeping his mouth shut wasn’t going to make it better and unless something changed fast he was totally screwed. He tried to lean away from the hot breath on his neck, but only ended up pressed into the other man. 

“I know that moonshine crap makes you go blind, but I ain’t your sister.” 

A growl escaped the toothless wonder and just as Dean had hoped, the man released him to throw a punch. Dean ducked down at the last second, letting the man’s fist collide with the face of the other man holding him. He shoved past them and sprinted up the steps. 

In the small house it wasn’t hard to find the front door, but he fumbled to get his stiff fingers to turn the doorknob. He froze at the sound of a gun hammer being cocked back. 

Slowly he looked over his shoulder to see a rounded older woman with her grey hair pulled up in bun. She would have looked completely innocent if not for the cold look in her eyes and the double barrel shotgun expertly resting against her shoulder. 

“Is this whole freakin’ town possessed?” 

The woman just narrowed her eyes on him. “We never had a day of trouble until you outsiders showed up.” 

“Actually, lady, you had two days then we came to help you, so yeah, shooting me makes sense.” 

Whether or not she agreed didn’t matter because the men came sprinting around the corner. Their faces were red with rage and they didn’t even slow down before the one that he’d gotten punched knocked him back into the paint-peeling door. The man held him pinned while he drove a fist into his solar plexus. Dean dropped to the floor and was left gasping as they hauled him to his feet. 

They half carried, half dragged him out of the house and back into the woods. Twigs and vegetation, that damn poison ivy no doubt included, lashed against his bare skin as they hauled him down a closed in trail. The night air quickly dried the sweat on his skin, but his blood was still pumping fast enough to keep him from getting chilled. Not that it mattered, being cold was the least of his problems. 

The old guy he had taken out was leading the parade and the two men dragging him were followed by at least some of the other elders. It felt way too much like he was being hauled off by a lynch mob. They even had the damn kerosene lantern instead of flashlights. As far as he could tell, these people had never gotten the memo that the Dark Ages was so last millennium. 

When they reached a clearing, the men threw Dean to the ground. He skidded over the rough earth and was too disoriented to get up before the two younger men again came up on either side of him. He thrashed against their attempts to pin him. The only weapon he still had was his legs, but they caught on to that too quickly. 

Before he could get a decent kick in they flipped him over and forced him onto his belly. The complete helplessness of being pinned naked beneath two men shut off his higher reasoning and sent him into full out survival mode. He bucked desperately against the weight as the bigger man straddled him, holding his legs still and leaning forward to put enough weight on his chest that he had to struggle for air. 

Beneath him the rocks on the ground gouged into the skin of his underside as he squirmed. The weight on his chest let up only when the men’s focus shifted to trying to get at his arms. Dean fought to keep his arms tucked beneath him, but the two men pried them out. With their weight they forced him still enough to weave more of the rough twine into the rope that was already knotted around his bloody wrists. 

“Raise him up,” the leader said. 

One of the men grabbed him around the waist and hauled him off the ground. In the next moment he felt an excruciating tug tearing at his shoulders. The second man was pulling on the other end of the rope, which was slung over a brace between two trees. He had barely gotten his senses back before he was dangling by his wrists between the trees with his feet unable to reach the ground. 

“Try running now, boy.” As he spoke, the old man hung the lantern on a hook a few feet away. The light spilled just far enough to let Dean see the circle of men standing around him. “You’re going to tell us just what you really are.” 

He struggled for an appearance of calm while he bought enough time to catch his breath. “I’m an Aquarius...and you are one crazy....” 

His teeth gritted at the impact of one of the younger man’s fists to his ribs. The fact that he was freely swinging lessened the blow, but put additional strain on his burning shoulders as he swung like a piñata. 

“Look,” Dean continued once the worst of the pain had passed, “I have no damn clue what you want to hear.” 

The elder’s hand delivered another stinging slap to his cheek. “Respect and the truth.” 

He bit back the smart ass reply on the tip of his tongue and made a likely futile effort to appeal to the man’s higher reasoning. The guy wanted the truth, he’d get the truth. 

“I already told you, my brother and I thought there was something going on here...some kind of revenge haunt...” 

“A haunt?” 

“You know, ghosts – vengeful spirits.” 

The elder exchanged a look with the two younger men that Dean only knew wasn’t good. One of them came up behind him, pressing against his bare back, rough hands gripping the tender skin of his hips to steady him. Dean struggled against the intimate contact until the other man stepped forward. 

Fist after fist beat against him. The rapid-fire strikes were peppered over his torso with some thrown to his face and a few low blows that brought the sting of tears to his eyes. He wasn’t sure how many times the man’s fists slammed into him before the one holding him stepped back just far enough to let him spin. Nausea crept further up into the back of his throat as the man began to intentionally twirl him. 

“You came into our town, desecrated the resting places of our dead and used them for your satanic rituals,” the elder said. “Now you expect us to believe you were trying to protect us from the spirits of our own people?” 

Dean couldn’t reply, could barely hear the man’s words. The flashing by of the lanterns light in the darkness and his already woozy head were too much. His head slumped forward as he struggled to swallow down bile and hold onto consciousness. 

The man who had been spinning him stopped and let the rope wind back to its natural position. When one of the men stopped his nauseating spinning entirely, Dean spit up a mouthful of blood, grimacing as the hot liquid splattered down his chest. 

“Leave him. We’ll see if dawn finds him more cooperative.” 

As the heat of nearly being sick dissipated, the coolness of the night quickly settled beneath his battered skin. He slowly became again aware of the burning tension in his shoulders that he couldn’t relieve. 

“You can’t just leave me out here,” Dean rasped. 

The elder grasped his lantern, but momentarily turned back. “We can’t let you go without answers, but tell us where your brother is and you will be left with your feet on the ground.” 

“I don’t know.” He spit up more blood that mostly just ended up running down his chin. With a bit of struggle he managed to bring a wry smirk to his broken lips. “But if I did...I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.” 

Without comment the small group followed the elder’s lead, turning away and leaving Dean swaying between the trees. He clenched his jaw at the pain rippling through his body, but mentally relief rushed through him. They really didn’t have Sam, which meant the fat lady wasn’t singing yet.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Torture, suggestive scenarios and attempted sexual assault.

Dean liked to think of himself as Houdini. He also liked to think about twins, pushing ninety on the open road and the cinnamon kissed scent of a fresh apple pie being pulled from the oven. Mostly, he liked to imagine his brother safe and happy.

His detached mind half wandered to all these things without being able to fix on any one thing – like how the hell he was going to get out of this one.

With the pull of gravity straining his shoulders to the point that he wanted to black out, even he was stumped about how to get down. With the lantern gone, the pitch black of night swallowed him. Despite his best efforts to force his eyes to adjust, at best all he could make out was the upper silhouette of the trees and only because they covered the bright stars shinning behind them. It felt like he was dangling in outer space.

Instead of grounding him, the incessant hum of mosquitoes in his ear only made him all the more disoriented. He twitched his weary muscles in a useless effort to shake off the little bastards that, at this rate, would have him exsanguinated by morning. They should be the least of his worries, but somehow, each new itch the bloodsuckers brought, irritated him more than the grinding that came from his battered ribs with each lungful of air.

The trees he hung between were spaced too widely for him to reach with his feet for leverage, not that it would help much if he could. He tried to fray the rough twine that constricted the blood flow to his tingling hands, but the only thing he managed to wear thin was the already tender skin of his wrists. At the burning of hot blood seeping down his cooling arms, the plan of using friction to escape went out the window.

If his entire midsection wasn’t beaten to hell he might have had the strength to get a decent swing going. Maybe the brace between trees wasn’t as strong as it looked. That seemed unlikely since it didn’t so much as creak under his weight, but he was running out of options and he wasn’t going to hang around and wait for the elders’ pit bulls to return.

As easy as that was to think, doing anything about it was far harder, especially as he felt his muddled mind drift towards unconsciousness. His eyes had nearly slipped closed when he caught a flash of light in the distance. The light was moving erratically, but burned steady. It was a flashlight, not a lantern.

“Sam?”

Dean’s voice was at first too hoarse to be heard over the deafening chorus of crickets. He tried to spit his mouth clean of the coppery taste that tainted his saliva before again calling for his brother. Stilling his ragged breaths, he strained to hear, but the call of katydids and croaking of frogs were all that answered while the beam of the flashlight still journeyed closer.

Before he could gather enough air for another shout, he heard a voice and it wasn’t his brother’s. “They got someone out here tonight, they surely do.”

Uncertainty hit Dean and he switched from trying to make noise to holding as still as possible. Just because it wasn’t Sam, didn’t mean it wasn’t help, but the thick accent said the voice belonged to a local and so far, he wasn’t getting the warm fuzzy vibe from these people.

“Who ya got?” another man asked.

The flashlight broke through the clearing, searched for a moment then fixed dead on Dean’s face. He screwed his eyes closed against the blinding beam. Instead of letting up, it only grew more intense as the man holding the flashlight moved in closer. Dean turned his head away.

“Not one of ours.” A strong hand gripped his jaw, turning his face back towards the light. “Not one of Bauer’s either...aww look at them cute lil’ freckles,” the man chuckled, rubbing a thick thumb over Dean’s cheek.

Gritting his teeth, Dean shook his head to dislodge the hand. It landed a sharp slap before falling away. Dean cracked his eyes open when the intensity of the light let up. The beam of the flashlight had moved to roam down his exposed body.

“They sure don’t like him much.”

“Too bad. Seems a crying shame to flay up something so damn pretty.”

“How about letting me down then?” Dean asked.

The two men exchanged crooked grins. “Just why would we wanna do that?”

Dean glanced up towards the tightly knotted ropes that held him, giving one more useless tug. “To prove you’re not the deranged hillbillies you look like?”

The man stepped away only long enough to grab a chunk of cut log and roll it over to set upright on the ground in front of Dean. He used it like a stepping stool, obviously not for the first time, and smirked as the added height put him face to face with Dean.

A grungy hand again grabbed Dean’s jaw with a bruising force as the man leaned into him. “Now who says we ain’t?”

“If you’re planning on kissing me, can you please slit my throat first?”

The guy’s pot belly jiggled as he gave a hearty laugh. With the hand clamped onto it, Dean could barely move his jaw but there was no way the words had been muffled enough to sound as funny as the man thought they were.

“Don’t you worry. Plenty of time for both.”

Dean was too exhausted to censor the raw panic that flashed over his eyes and sent both men into another bout of laughter. The manic sound like cackling hyenas raised the hair at the nape of his neck while also reinforcing the unfortunate fact that Dumb and Dumber here might be his only way out of this.

“Awesome.” Dean risked a tentative glance between the men while wearing a suggestive smirk on his lips. “But I’m a lot more fun on my feet.”

“Nice try, Freckles, but there ain’t nothing you can give us on the ground that we can’t take right here.”

The man holding him leaned in so close that Dean could taste his breath. He cringed at the sour stench of alcohol so thick his eyes stung like he’d been cutting fresh onions.   
Dean quirked a weary brow. “At least invest in a toothbrush first.” 

The amused look on the man’s face slipped to an ugly sneer that carried far too much joy. “Got something way better than that.” For a moment, the man stood there noisily mashing something in his mouth with the determination of a cow chewing its cud. “Open your mouth.” The pressure on Dean’s jaw became painful. “Come on now, boy, open wide or I’ll smash you open like a pecan.”

When Dean relented, he instantly regretted it. The man’s rough lips locked onto his before forcing a tongue past his teeth and pushing in a wad of acrid crap and juices into his mouth. After he pulled out, the man continued to hold a hand over Dean’s mouth, forcing it closed as he gagged.

“It’s good chew, boy, don’t you go wasting it. Chew and swallow. Now that there will put some hair on your chest.” Dean’s eyes watered as the burning juices ran down his throat. “Good. Now swallow the rest. Go on, now. Just a little tobacco. Ain’t gonna do nothing but give a first timer like you one hell of an upset.” The man’s hand patted against Dean’s bare stomach, feeling hot against the night’s air. “Good boy. Got a second helping coming.”

With the pressure of the hand gone, Dean spat up what residue he could until the smaller man stepped forward. Dean raised his head just far enough to nail the bastard with a glare.

“You even think about shoving your nasty ass tongue in here,” Dean rasped, “and you can kiss it goodbye.”

“You don’t wanna share?” With a lopsided grin, the man wiped the spit from Dean’s chin. “That’s all right, son. Plenty to go around”

The man stuffed a flashlight into his armpit before he pulled out a tin and popped off the lid. He pinched out a wad and Dean shook his head, clenching his jaw closed. It didn’t faze the man, who just squeezed his fingers tight over Dean’s nostrils.

After only a few seconds, Dean’s already burning throat reflexively gasped for air and the man crammed the tobacco in before pushing up on Dean’s jaw hard enough to clank his teeth together. Dean tried to wait the man out, but the longer the crap sat in his mouth the more his mouth filled with saliva, searing his throat rawer with each forced swallow. His eyes were blurry with moisture by the time he gave up and swallowed the chunk of chew.

“Now something to wash it down.”

The man twisted the top off a wide mouth mason jar and set the rim of jar to Dean’s lips. When the jar and Dean’s head were tilted back, a surge of clear liquid that tasted like paint thinner poured over his tongue. Dean tried to spit it out, but it flowed faster than he could stop it, gurgling out the corners of his mouth and splashing down to sting against the split skin of his abdomen.

A lightheadedness washed over him as his stomach churned. He felt suddenly hot, sweat replacing goose bumps as he squirmed against the binds. Another stomach spasm jerked through him and he wretched. Distantly he heard the men laughing as they had to stumble back, the contents of Dean’s stomach splattering noisily to the ground at their feet.

His features contorted while he continued to cough and heave up what he could, leaving his ribs screaming in agony. Dean sucked in a ragged gasp before letting his head fall forward and his body hang limply while he panted to reclaim air.

One of the man’s hands ran over the flat of his stomach. By the time Dean recovered awareness enough to feel the groping touch, it slipped down to brush into his shorthairs. Dean dragged in a sharp gasp. With a fresh flow of adrenaline surging through him, he lashed out in the only way he could.

He pulled up his legs and kicked out, knocking the man in the chest. The drunk son of a bitch stumbled off the log and back into his friend who shoved forward past him. Dean tried to wrap his legs around the man’s torso to swing him, but the apparently less drunk man deflected him, throwing a low blow and grabbing Dean while he road out the pain.

“So you wanna play a game then?”

The ache in his shoulders was excruciating, fighting for attention over the nausea that still flushed his skin. His chest heaved as well as it could against the pulling pressure, and cold sweat dewed over the back of his neck. Right now, passing out and choking on his own vomit sounded like good times.

“You play nice and you can be one of us.” The man tipped Dean’s head back to force more raw alcohol down his throat. “You get feisty and I’ll let Daryl hump you like a hound in heat. We got us a deal?”

Dean choked, spitting his mouth clear. “Yeah, okay....but just so you know...I really suck at Scrabble.”

“I like you, Freckles. You’re a damn funny little shit.” The man chuckled and patted Dean’s ass before turning back to his friend who still looked to be catching up with the fact that Dean had kicked him. “So, Daryl, we each get fifteen. Best of three.”

The man gave Dean a shove, leaving him swinging while he and Daryl shone their flashlights at the ground, wandering around kicking at any bare patches of dirt. From what Dean could tell, they’d given up on him and decided to go snipe hunting. Dean’s eyelids grew heavy until jerking open when one of the men again spoke.

“Hey, Freckles, you ready?” the smaller guy called. “You get to be scorekeeper. All you gotta do is tell us when it’s a hit. It’s mighty hard to tell in the dark.”

“When what’s a hit?”

It took a second for Dean to again find the men. When he saw them, they were backed away and had their flashlights propped up on the ground, vaguely pointing in his direction. In front of each of their feet was a pile of small rocks.

“Like this.”

The toothless rocket scientist smiling at Dean held one of the pebbles in his hand, absently tossing it up and down. He cocked back his arm and hurtled the stone. Dean hissed as the rock bit into the skin of his chest. For a drunk guy, his aim was pretty damn good.

“What are you crazy?”

“Ain’t you never played rock toss? Told ya, all you gotta say is ’hit’. Unless you’d rather play with Daryl...he likes you.”

Dean grunted at a sharp impact to his hip. He winced and let his head fall back to stare up into the blackness of the sky while hoping like hell that Sam was somewhere far from here. 

“Hit.”

~~~

Last night wasn’t clear in Dean’s head. At some point, the men had grown bored. He wasn’t sure what all they had or hadn’t done before they’d left, but his torso was peppered with nicks and bruises and sticky with dried fluids he didn't want to think about. His throat felt swollen and he’d reached a point where he would literally kill for a glass of water.

The rest was mixed up in a foggy haze from having spent the entire night skirting the edge of consciousness with a headache that was in the process of pounding him straight into insanity. Every time he’d nearly been awake, his hyper aware ears had drawn in the sounds of the night.

With every snap of a branch he’d been unsure if the men were coming back, if spirits were really stalking the woods or if his brother had finally come. Mostly it had just been coons that sounded far too much like chupacabras for his liking.

This time, when he came to it was different. The sounds of the woods had changed. Crickets were now singing birds and the suffocating blackness was cut through by the early glow of light through the trees. The mosquitoes had let up and he was starting to wonder if he’d been forgotten out here until he heard soft footsteps coming up from behind.

Being strung up didn’t stop his muscles from instinctively tensing in preparation for a fight. It was only confusion that released the tension as he furrowed his brow at the person that came into view. It wasn’t his brother or the elders’ lackeys.

It was a girl, younger than him, and by far the youngest person they’d seen in a town where most of the young people were sick. Her movements were skittish, but her big blue eyes brimmed with pity. He hated seeing that look directed towards him, but at least it was something he could work with.

Cautiously she approached, tucking her wavy, dirty blond hair behind her ear and fidgeting with her dress. She focused on pouring, what he hoped was water, from a canteen into a cup. Dean ran his tongue over his split lips suddenly finding it hard to care about anything aside from the taunting liquid.

She kept her focus on his face to avoid his naked body, while still managing to evade his eyes. It wasn’t until she set the cup to his lips that he realized how much his own body was shaking. Greedily, he gulped down the water, nearly choking by the time she pulled the cup away. He coughed and caught his breath before again looking at her.

“You the good cop?” he managed to ask.

The words seemed to startle her. She glanced around as if afraid someone might be listening. “Oh...I’m not a cop. I’m just the sheriff’s cousin.”

“Isn’t everyone?” She stared at him with uncertainty and he shook his head before trying to flex his agonizingly throbbing shoulders. “Forget it. Can you please just help me down?.”

“I’m sorry...I can’t.”

She turned away and took a cloth from her bag. After pouring some more water from the canteen onto it, she pressed the fabric to his face. The gentle touch felt foreign. Carefully, she wiped clean the blood and vomit plastered to his skin.

Her towel moved down to scrub his chest and she spoke again, her voice lower than the wind. “You have to tell them whatever they want to know.” 

“I don’t know what they want.”

Somehow, the answer seemed to frustrate her. “They’re going to whip you.” Finally she met his eyes and he could see the anxious concern. “They’re going to whip you until you tell them what you did.”

He tried to clench his fists, but his hands were too numb. “Look at my face. Do I look like a monster?” Panic stirred in his gut. “They haven’t found anyone else, have they?”

“No one knows where your brother is.”

Dean let out a ragged sigh of relief.

“They’ll kill you,” she warned.

“If you leave me here...yeah, they probably will. But I’m not what they think and they’re never getting my brother.”

Tears welled up in her eyes, before a look of panic returned. She threw her things back into her sack. “I’m sorry. I believe you, but I…I’m sorry.”

She stumbled back and scurried off into the woods. Dean’s head sagged forward only to pull up a moment later when he realized why she had ran. 

The elders were back, trudging down the trail like a heard of grim reapers. Their younger muscle lead the pack, one with a rolled cowhide whip looped casually in his hand. It was the grizzly bear of a creep Dean had decked last night.

“Seriously?” Dean gave a nervous chuckle while trying to choke down his rising panic. “You really think going all Indiana Jones on my ass is gonna make me suddenly remember I’m a big bad warlock?”

The lead elder only spared him one cold glance before nodding to the man with the whip. Every aching muscle in Dean’s body knotted in apprehension as the man made a show of unfurling the leather coil. His eyes tried to follow when the guy walked around to take up position behind him.

Dean’s breath quickened and his eyes searched for someway out that he might have missed in the dark while he’d been busy puking all over himself. For the first time, he looked up to see the rough cut beam the rope holding him was slung over. If the rope was half as thick and just shifting his weight didn’t tear his shoulders out of their sockets, he might have been able to fray it over the night, but anything he tried now would be too little too late.

“We’ve always been healthy people.” The elder’s voice was annoyingly calm. “Then you and your brother come asking about our children, sneaking through our homes...digging up our graves. Now more children are sick.”

“We were wrong.” Trying to appeal to whatever scraps of commonsense these crazy bastards had was Dean’s only remaining chance. “Your kids are just sick. It’s the other deaths...”

“The deaths that started right before you came into our town. Tell us what you have done to our people.”

“Man, you got this all backwards...son of a bitch!”

The first lash of the cowhide bit into the tightly pulled skin of his shoulder blades. He tried useless to jerk away as another strike slashed low on his back, the tail of the whip curling around to cut into his side. His teeth gritted as another streaked fire across the center of his back. It wasn’t until the fourth crack that he realized the man had just been warming up.

Dean was swung forward hard at the next impact. The white-hot trail of numbness left in its wake quickly gave way to searing pain. Their leader stepped forward, stilling Dean’s swinging with an unwelcomed hand digging into his hip.

“Confess to us what you’ve done.”

Dean could already feel the heat of moist blood seeping down his back and already knew that nothing he said would change what was coming. “We were trying to save your worthless town. If that’s a sin...you better keep right on swinging.”

He bit his lip, nearly closing his eyes before he saw the girl hunkered in the bushes behind the elders. A spot of sun through the trees caught the tears now freely flowing down her cheeks. Telling her this was all on her, had been a ploy to get him down, not something he really wanted her to believe. It wasn't her fault.

His eyes met hers so she knew he was speaking to her, but he looked away before the words left his lips so he wouldn’t give away her position. “It’s okay.”

In the next moment, the snap of the leather sliced through the still air, flinging him forward. There was no longer a delay between strokes, no reprieve to let the fire from one pass before the next searing brand came. The steady sound of the lashes bled into a solid barrage.

When he no longer saw the girl, he lost the motivation to stifle his cries. Without Sam here to see, there was no point in fighting to look strong. Playing tough would only wear him out faster and, if anything, he wanted them to think he was weaker than he was, so he let go.

He howled as particularly strong lash snaked around to flay across his belly. His knees tried to pull up to his chest to protect the tender skin of his midsection until another stroke urged his back to arch away.

By the time he was left swaying he couldn’t feel his back anymore. Every muscle in his body shook. His eyes were squeezed closed and the individual lashes had been matted together by moisture.

“You have until noon before this matter will be discussed further.”

Dean gritted his teeth and didn’t so much as dignify the man with a glance. “Can’t wait,” he mumbled breathlessly.

He listened to the fading footfall of the demented elders disappearing back down the trail. If the bastards spent half as long looking at the facts as they did walking in between beating him, they might just be able to get their heads on straight. As it was, he was pretty sure he'd never again feel the ground beneath his feet.

Just breathing was bordering on too much exertion. Every nerve in his body begged for the pain to just stop. It was only not wanting Sam to have to find his body, not wanting to think what stupid crap his brother would pull if he did, that kept Dean clinging to consciousness. 

~~~

The late morning sun was rising above the top of the trees and the air temperature was rising just as fast. While the rays of the sun beat down hot over his bare skin, slipping easily beneath the canopy of the tall trees he was bound to, he still couldn’t stop shaking. He was too disoriented to tell if he was actually shivering or just trembling from muscle exhaustion.

He didn’t need to see his back to know what they’d done to it. The sensation to his nerves had returned and that wasn’t a good thing. He felt like he was lying draped over a bed of nails heated by a bed of coals. He could also see the wild licks that had lashed his front side and the blood that washed from the split skin to wind down his trembling thighs.

Now he also knew what had happened to the others. These were the wounds they couldn’t explain, sliced into his own skin. The deaths they were trying to save these people from had been caused by the people themselves.

In an effort to stay awake he scanned the area to try to figure out where he was. It was dense forest that all looked the same. If they had dragged him only a short distance from the church, Sam wouldn’t have had any problem tracking, but Sam wasn’t here. Either something else had happened or he wasn’t anywhere near the old church. 

When he and Sam had asked questions around town they’d never talked to any of these particular freaks. For all he knew, he wasn’t even anywhere near town. From the level of crazy, it was far more likely that he was hanging around in the Twilight Zone.

Too soon, he again heard movement closing in. “You better have whiskey this time,” he slurred.

A harsh whisper came from somewhere near the edge of the woods. At first he shrugged it off as a combo of the wind rustling in the trees, blood loss and wishful thinking. Then he heard it again.

“Dean?”

It was Sam, but from the sounds of it, his brother hadn’t seen him yet. Dean forced his head up from his chest and glanced around with a sudden unease. Leaving him out here to roast in the hot sun was a fine torture, but it could just as easily be a trap for his brother.

“Dude, stay back.” He scanned the forest line to try to get a visual on his brother. “I don’t know if I’m alone.”

“You are. Everyone’s praying...Dean!”

With inhumanely long strides, Sam sprinted from the thick brush and a moment later was at his side, eyes already scanning over Dean’s abused torso. All the blood drained from Sam’s face. Dean glanced down at himself, lowering his head again when a pained flush of humiliation rose to his overheated cheeks.

“Oh God...that was you they were whipping.”

“Not as bad as it looks...” Dean tried to turn his head to look over his shoulder and regretted it as the motion tugged at his lashed skin. “How bad does it look?”

“We gotta get you down. Now.” 

Before Dean could pull together the words to tell Sam where the rope was tied off, his brother was already lowering it. Dean groaned at the sudden shift in the position of his arms. Getting his feet on the ground wasn’t the instant relief he’d hoped it would be. If anything it only reignited the fire in his limp shoulders. He tried to keep quiet, but couldn’t muffle the moans as he lowered his arms.

“Just hold on,” Sam said.

His brother was there to catch him as the ground moved in too fast. Dean tried to sit down, unable to find the strength to stand. As a paralyzing tingling set in over his arms, he groggily shot an annoyed look towards his brother who kept trying to yank him up.

“Dean, come on, man. We can’t stay here. Can you walk?”

He took a moment to consider the question that required way more brainpower than he had. “My legs are the only things they didn’t screw up.”

That was true, but it wasn’t a yes to Sam’s question. At the moment Dean wasn’t sure if he even remembered how to walk.

Dean looked up from the ground as he felt hands grasping his uselessly heavy arms. Sam pulled out a knife and cut away the ropes binding his wrists, carefully peeling the blood soaked twine away from the abraded skin. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that he couldn’t feel his arms.

Pain shot through his side and he tried to stumble away. When he looked up, Sam’s eyes were apologetic, his brother’s fingers apparently feeling the need to prod his bruised torso. 

“I don’t think there’s any good way to carry you.”

Dean shook his head and focused on getting his legs beneath him. One of his hands steadied himself against the pale grey, blood streaked bark of the tree.

“I can walk.”

Sam's eyes were skeptical. “You sure?”

“Yep.”

A little white lie never hurt anyone. It wasn't like they could have Scotty beam them up if his answer was no. There was only one way out of here and it was on foot.

Sam eased him the rest of the way upright and by the time they made it to the edge of the clearing, Dean’s legs remembered how to cooperate. Still, rushing through these woods in the buff was going to be about as fun as playtime with the town’s retirement community had been. Every movement of his body felt like it was splitting the skin of his backside clear open. He tried to let the pain distract him from the anti-joy of being draped naked over his brother.

His mind was blank. It took all his concentration to move one foot after the other and follow alongside Sam. Dean had no concept of how far they had traveled or where they were going, but after he’d stumbled for the tenth time, Sam stopped pulling him along. Before Dean knew what was happening, his brother was lowering him to the ground.

Dean bit back a whimper as the cuts on his thighs made contact with the earth. “Why we stopping?”

“Because you’re about to pass out, Dean.”

“Am not...it’s just too damn sunny to keep my eyes open.” Dean took in a shuddering breath, absently looking up at the high position of the sun beyond the tops of the trees. A bolt of awareness struck him. “What time is it?”

“Why?”

“Got a hot date.”

Sam sighed and looked to his watch. “It’s 12:05.”

“Super.” The clockwork elders would by now know he was missing. “How much further to the car?” Sam grimaced and looked like he was carefully considering his answer. Dean narrowed his droopy eyes further. “Dude, where’s my car?”

“The car’s fine.” That at least was a relief, but there sure as hell was something else Sam wasn’t telling him. “It’s just...it's still a few miles away.”

“Miles?” Dean nearly choked on the word.

That would explain why it had taken Sam so damn long to show up. It also meant they were totally screwed. His body was done, he was done. The thought of walking another fifty feet over this terrain in his birthday suit was way more than he could take. He just wanted to lay down.

He swallowed hard, closing his eyes and leaning sideways to rest against the support of his brother’s shoulder. Sam’s hand wiped the sweat from Dean's forehead, pulling his eyes open again.

“Dean..." Sam's hand suddenly fell away. "Do you hear that?

Dean’s body went rigid at his brother's wary tone. He held his breath, tilting his head as he listened. “Oh crap.”

It was distant though unmistakably the sound of howling hounds closing in fast. Sam pulled out his gun and checked the clip. He shook his head, probably hoping Dean hadn’t seen. Not only had he seen Sam’s frustration, but he had also seen the nearly empty clip.

“Get out of here,” Dean told him.

“What?”

“It’s my blood they’re tracking.” Dean shifted so that he was leaning against the boulder, expecting Sam to get up. When his brother didn’t move, Dean gave him a weak shove. ”Go!”

Sam stood, but instead of taking off, he reached down to grab Dean. “I’m not leaving you, Dean.”

“You’re not doing me any favors by staying. You can't save me if they catch both our asses.”

Despite Dean’s resistance, Sam had no trouble hauling him to his feet. “We already split up once and look what it got you.”

Dean braced heavily against his brother, glaring up at him. “A dumb ass brother that doesn’t know when to save himself?”

“You can thank me later.”

“I’m gonna kick your ass later,” Dean muttered.

“Sounds great.” Sam searched again for unbroken skin to grip before, mumbling an apology when he had to wrap his arm around Dean’s sliced waist. Dean groaned, clenching his jaw at the ripple of pain, but nodded that it was alright. “Let’s just get you out of here in one piece first.”


End file.
